Plaxton Primo
Paul Harley
their web site
"Plaxton Primos to return to factory once again.
ESTs troubled primo vehicles are to return to manufacturer plaxton
again, with repeated chassis cracks and poor manufacturing this
vehicle type is the worst the company has encountered says MD Carl
Hookings. These vehicles have spent more than 50% of there time with
us off the road."
Another South Wales operator (Drake Travel, now in receivership) also
had chassis problems with their Primos, with buses having to be sent
back to Plaxton under warranty.
Are these things under-engineered for the job?
I've had a ride on a Primo and thought it cheap and nasty - the seats
didn't have proper cushions, just a thin layer of fabric on a plastic
base. The single leaf door stuck out the side of the bus when it was
open, tempting fate for any driver who moved off with it open and a
bus stop pole placed right at the kerb! Also, the engine sounded like
a bag of nails!
Is this bus a "Lemon" in terms of being suitable for the job?
I understand they're about �80k new - I wonder what their second-hand
value will be after five years?
Paul Harley
Mitdish
<snip>
> Are these things under-engineered for the job?
<snip>
I don't know about that, but is Carl Hookings under qualified to run a
business? What it actually says on their website is:
"Plaxton Primos to return to factory once again.
ESTs troubled primo vehicles are to return to manufacturer plaxton
agian, with repeated chassis cracks and poor manufacturing this
Vehicle type is the worst the company has encountered says MD Carl
Hookings. These vehicles have spent more than 50% of there time with
us off the road.".
I've counted five spelling mistakes in it already, and it only
consists of 55 words! Before berating Plaxton's about allegedly
shoddily built buses perhaps he should do something about his shoddily
written publicity releases.
John Williamson
>>>
>>> I've counted five spelling mistakes in it already, and it only
>>> consists of 55 words! Before berating Plaxton's about allegedly
>>> shoddily built buses perhaps he should do something about his shoddily
>>> written publicity releases.
>> should have a thousand uni degrees before they can post to news groups
>> do get a life .
>
> Not a thousand degrees, Ron. Merely basic primary school education would
> be enough.
>
Or the desire and ability to use a spellchecker and a grammar checker.
Something that the posters picking holes in posts here could do with
benefit to their output, I think.
We're not moaning about the Primos where I work, by the way, they're
earning us too much doing warranty repairs and updates.
--
Tciao for Now!
John.
Brian Robertson
> should have a thousand uni degrees before they can post to news groups
> do get a life .
Where did he mention posting to a news group? I thought he was referring to
posting notices on a bus company website.
John Williamson
ungrammatical post....) to the bad grammar in the post complaining about
the spelling and grammar on the website. (Note, though, that the
spellchecker in Thunderbird says that all words on this page are
correctly spelt. This doesn't, however, mean that these are the
*correct* words for the meaning intended.)
The posting on the Company website should really have been checked prior
to uploading, as it doesn't really give the best impression of the
Company to any readers. However, that's their business, in more ways
than one.
HTH.
John Williamson
> it is only the internet .,
Which is why, if I can make sense of what's meant, I normally ignore
grammar and spelling mistakes. However:- "People living in glass houses
shouldn't throw stones." <Insert smiley of choice here>
Paul Harley
<johnwil...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>
>We're not moaning about the Primos where I work, by the way, they're
>earning us too much doing warranty repairs and updates.
So are they under-engineered for the job, in your opinion?
The fact you're doing warranty repairs suggests it's not a case of
operators putting them on routes better suited to an Enviro 200 or a
Solo?
Paul Harley
John Williamson
> On Mon, 08 Feb 2010 12:49:53, John Williamson
> <johnwil...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>> We're not moaning about the Primos where I work, by the way, they're
>> earning us too much doing warranty repairs and updates.
>
> So are they under-engineered for the job, in your opinion?
>
off the record that operators daren't skip a service on them, so they
*could* be seen as marginal for normal use, whatever that is.
> The fact you're doing warranty repairs suggests it's not a case of
> operators putting them on routes better suited to an Enviro 200 or a
> Solo?
>
I don't know. We run three round Congleton on the Beartown services, but
as I'm on the coaching side, I'm not in a position to comment on our bus
reliability. It may be that operators make a commercial decision based
on purchase price and running costs against penalties for unreliability.
I'm not privy to that sort of information.
A fair bit of the work we do is upgrading/ updating certain parts to the
Mark 2 specification, from what I hear. This would suggest that early
ones had problems which have now been solved. I'm not sure what's
involved, but it seems to take a fitter about a day to do the work.
Mitdish
> Not a thousand degrees, Ron. Merely basic primary school education would
> be enough.
>
> Ivor
Passing the CPC exams might be handy too, but with the level of
illiteracy demonstrated by Carl Hookings and his staff you do have to
wonder whether they ever did.
Ivor Jones
The CPC isn't an exam so you can't 'fail' it. You get a certificate
simply for turning up.
Ivor
John Williamson
> The CPC isn't an exam so you can't 'fail' it. You get a certificate
> simply for turning up.
>
for the office staff, is still quite a stiff exam, from what I remember
when I took it a while back. I know quite a few who've failed it the
first and, sometimes, the second try.
Still, whoever wrote the item on the website doesn't need a CPC for the
job they hold.
Colin Snead
wrote:
Interesting debate on the Plaxton Primo gentlemen. I previously worked
as the Purchasing Manager for a company called Enterprise Bus, the
manufacturer of the Plaxton Primo Chassis. Enterprise was placed into
receivership in July 2008, I started my own company (Impact
International Procurement Ltd www.impact-ip.org.uk) and aquired the
exclusive license to sell parts and components for the Primo. If you
have a requirement for Primo Parts then please don't hesitate to
contact us, I'm sure it will make replacing parts a little more
painless.
Colin